Today, portable data handling devices are becoming increasingly popular. These data handling devices are e.g. PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), mobile phones and portable computers.
In handheld devices, and to some extent even in regular stationary computers, the text insertion unit, such as keyboards, is more and more often replaced by some kind of device for recognition of a handwritten symbol. A common solution is to arrange a pressure-sensitive area on a screen where a user can write characters. The characters are then interpreted and processed by the portable device and thereafter presented on the screen.
Usually, a handwritten character entered on a detection device is interpreted and recognised by means of templates. Every template is associated with an image in a font, which after recognition is presented on the screen. Even though the way of writing a character may vary, a correct recognition is enabled by the use of more than one template for the character. These templates are associated with the same image in the font. Thus, it is always the same image that is presented after interpretation of one handwritten character no matter how it is written. Such a method is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,732,152 where the handwritten character that is entered is recognized and the recognition result is displayed in two areas as an image from a font, as shown in FIGS. 5 and 6 in said U.S. patent. The recognition will sometimes misinterpret the handwritten character, and an image that visualise an incorrect character will be displayed. In such cases, the user is not able to analyse why the recognition was incorrect. This will cause irritation to the user, especially if a character is commonly being misinterpreted.
Another way of using the above described method of presenting the character on the screen as an image from a font after interpretation is described in US 2001/0026262. A method of presenting a message in a way that reflects the way the user writes is disclosed. The entered message is interpreted and thereafter the recognised characters in the message are displayed as images from a selected font that reflects the handwriting of the user. The selection of the font is done one time for all the characters of the whole message. The selection of a font may be done after the first character or after a number of characters. The latter makes it easier to find the font that gives the best resemblance with the characteristics of the handwritten characters. The font may be a regular font, such as Comic sans MS, or a new font created on the basis of the handwritten input.
This method presents characters in a way that reflects the personal characteristics of a user's handwriting. However, it does not give feedback to the user as to how and why the device interprets the character the way it does.
To conclude, a user will not get any help in understanding why the character was misinterpreted using these methods. As a result, he will never know how to change the way he is writing to fasten the process of receiving the correct interpretation directly. This will lead to ineffectiveness and time-consuming corrections of the misinterpreted characters.